An aspirant's several years search for Allah, made possible by His grace/mercy ,and not through any efforts of the seeker

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

122. Magicians

Brunton met his first real magician in India. His name was
Mahmoud Bey, and he was from Egypt. Brunton asked him to demonstrate his
powers, which the magician agreed. He asked Brunton to write a question on a
piece of paper and fold the paper as small as possible. Meanwhile, Mahmoud withdrew away and half
turned his back to him.

Brunton wrote the following
question, “Where did I live four years ago?” and folded the paper, as
instructed.

Mahmoud came back, and told Brunton
to hold the paper and the pencil tightly in his clenched fist. The magician
closed his eyes and went into what looked like a profound concentration. He opened his eyes and said quietly, “ The
question you asked was ‘Where did I live four years ago ?’” Brunton was
astonished.

This was a case of mind reading,
extraordinary!

Next, the Egyptian, ordered Brunton
to unfold the paper and examine it.

The paper revealed, under the
question, the name of the town where Brunton lived four years ago! Some unknown
hand had written the answer in pencil.

Brunton was amazed beyond measure,
because mind-reading could not provide the name of the town, and write it too,
on the tightly clenched paper in his fist. His pencil had remained in his fist
too.

He asked the magician to repeat it.
The Egyptian agreed.

This time Brunton wrote “What
journal did I edit 4 years ago”

Mahmoud closed his eyes, and concentrated.
He gave the correct answer.

He told Brunton to unfold the
paper.

The name of the journal he edited
four years ago was clumsily written with a pencil

For a third time he requested the
magician to repeat his demonstration. Mahmoud succeeded again.

Brunton was baffled beyond measure.
He thought of three possible explanations for the supernatural performance:
mind-reading, hypnotism, and conjuring. He rejected all three.

It could not be conjuring because
the pencil and paper came from Brunton, the paper never left his hands, and
questions were randomly selected by him, without any premeditation.

It could not be hypnotism because
Brunton knew the subject and would have recognized if somebody was trying to
influence him, and furthermore the questions and answers were still there on
the paper. Brunton finally came to the conclusion that the magician had read
his mind, and with some inexplicable magic written the answers

Brunton felt the presence of
invisible and eerie forces in the room (Brunton was a psychic).

“Can anybody in England do this?”
The Egyptian asked

He was compelled to admit that
nobody could do it under those test conditions.

Brunton requested him to explain
his methods, knowing full well that magicians and conjurers never reveal their
secrets. The magician declined

Brunton asked him to just tell the
broad outline of his feats, the theoretical side only.

Mahmoud mused over his query for a
while.

“I am willing to do that”

They met the next day. The
explanation was neither of the three that Brunton had considered and rejected. Mahmoud
told Brunton that he had invisible spirits under his control, and he was also a
thought reader. He spent several years to make the spirits obedient to him. He
had thirty spirits at his command which did his bidding. One of the spirits was
of his dead brother, who helped him. Most of the others were Jinns, native inhabitants of spirit
world, who never took a human body.

These spirits were proficient in
one task only. For instance the jinns,
who produced the pencil-written words on the paper, would have been quite
unable to ascertain his questions. Mahmoud tried to employ only good jinns, and not the evil ones, used by
African sorcerers. Because the evil ones were dangerous servants who would
sometimes turn on their master and kill him.

One had to know each spirit’s name.
The Egyptian could summon a spirit by concentrating on him, or writing his name
in Arabic on a paper. They would come instantaneously.

Brunton met his second magician in
Egypt. His name was kept secret by his wish. He was the most famous magician of
Egypt, or at least, Cairo. He lived in a large house in ancient quarters. Brunton
went to his house and met the magician who was around sixty. The magician was
very suspicious of Brunton. After several visits he became less reserved. He
was also an astrologer, and made a horoscope of Brunton (which Brunton did not
want)

One day he told Brunton to bring a
white, healthy, fowl, and he will put a jinn-spirit
at Brunton’s disposal! Brunton did not want it but the old man insisted.

Brunton returned three days later with a plump
white bird tucked under his arm.

The magician asked to release the
bird in the middle of the room. He then instructed Brunton to step over an
incense brazier, three times.

He drew a small square on a piece
of paper. and subdivided it into nine small squares. He next wrote either an
Arabic letter or a kabbalistic sign, in each of the nine squares in the
diagram. Then he started muttering a magical incantation with eyes fixed on the
fowl. Sometimes he would extend his hand and point a finger, as if he was
giving an order.

Brunton noticed that the fowl
started trembling.

The magician asked him to step over
the brazier three times, again. When he returned to the divan, he noticed that
the fowl was not looking at the magician any more, but had turned his eyes on
Brunton. He fixed his eyes at Brunton, and never changed.

Brunton observed a strange change in
the fowl, his breathing became labored. His beak opened with air-hunger.
Finally he collapsed and died.

The magician was happy at the
outcome. He said that it meant that the spirit had accepted his sacrifice. He
explained, that sometimes the fowl does not die, which means that the spirit
had not accepted that person.

Henceforth, the genie that
destroyed the life of that bird as a sign that he was ready to serve Brunton,
will work for his benefit.

Brunton was told to throw the dead
fowl, at the hour of midnight, in the Nile River, and as he threw the bird he
was supposed to make a wish. One day the genie will cause his wish to come
true.

The magician acknowledged that the
supremacy lies with Allah. The magicians use their art, but only Allah knows
everything. Final word lies with God.

The magician also said that the
secret is passed from teacher to pupil, and the pupil or master is not allowed
to reveal the secret to anybody else. The apprenticeship was hard and
dangerous. He had not accepted a single pupil. Eventually he was bound by the
laws that governed his fraternity to accept and teach somebody before his
death, but since he knew the exact date and year of his death, there was still
time left.

I have narrated the two cases of
black magic in blog 87 and 109. A practitioner of black magic tried to poison
and kill Indra Devi, and Shahab lived in a haunted house which was frequented
by the spirits of a woman and her murderer.